Understanding The Term "High Fenced Hunting"

[Denvir Tire]

I don't know much, however, I was riding with my PH on a property in the Eastern Cape. We had inadvertently pushed a Kudu cow into a tight spot where two fences joined, the PH says"watch this"...
That Kudu jumped a fence that was IMPOSSIBLE.
True story

 

[Tom Leoni]

When asked if a concession that I would hunt in is high-fenced, I always answer with a question: "what are you asking?"

Are you asking if the game is artificially bred and raised?
Are you asking if the game is tame?
Are you asking if the concentration of specimens is unnaturally high?
Are you asking if blatantly non-native species are found on it?
Or are you simply asking whether the owner of the concession also owns the game that happens to be on his property at any given time, with all the legal advantages that this entails?

If you're asking the first four questions, the answer is no. The mere presence of a fence does not automatically involve these conditions. If you are asking the last question, then yes.

I honestly don't see how, with African wild land being so severely encroached by farming, building, developing, etc., we can consider most any wild area as not "contained" in one way or another. This is mostly a game of perception. In many ways, a well-managed fenced area will be more akin to the Africa of old, than non-fenced areas where game has been decimated by adjacent farming, poaching, disease, and development. Perhaps my perception is also distorted, but if I can see the massive difference between a so-called "high fenced" property in Africa that is well managed and an American-style game-farm, so can other people. YMMV

 

[Neil Molendyk]

I don't know much, however, I was riding with my PH on a property in the Eastern Cape. We had inadvertently pushed a Kudu cow into a tight spot where two fences joined, the PH says"watch this"...
That Kudu jumped a fence that was IMPOSSIBLE.
True story

I agree, we tracked a wounded Kudu bull in Namibia in 2013, he cleared at least 3 eight foot tall fences that I witnessed and each time he was bleeding enough to leave a dinner sized plate of blood while he rested before jumping the fence. unbelievable, luckily we found him the next morning and he resides in our living room today.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

The farm model there will always be. The wide open free range hunts there may not always be, but there is some still out there. It is horses for courses, the different offerings are precisely that - choices. If you dont like one model, move on, you are free to do so, but why criticise and bicker?

 

[IvW]

I find it amusing that some Ranches in the states are 300 something acres with high and low fence and that is never an issue but as soon as South Africa comes into the picture no matter the size the fence is always an issue.....

Just go hunt and enjoy....

 

[Red Leg]

I find it amusing that some Ranches in the states are 300 something acres with high and low fence and that is never an issue but as soon as South Africa comes into the picture no matter the size the fence is always an issue.....

Just go hunt and enjoy....

A 300 - 500 acre high fence operation in the States is an issue to most of us who hunt here. I do not begrudge someone's right to do so - but I don't consider it "hunting."

 

[crs]

CEH,
Ditto on the fence avoidance habits of the American Prong horn. The one time that I saw a Pronghorn jump a fence was when a herd of about 70 animals became panicked in a large field and raced to the opposite end and only two of them jumped the fence at the end and they appeared to clear it nicely. The rest of the herd went under or through the fence while they were well out of range.

 

[crs]

What Red Leg said +1 about very small properties.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

Fences keep cattle and people out. I find it totally off to see cattle, donkeys and goats being herded all over the so-called 'African Hunt'. Give me a piece of pure African bush, even if it takes a fence to achieve it.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I enjoyed my hunt in the Eastern Cape and learned SO much, and a lot of that was through direct conversations with my PH about high fence versus free range opportunities. He was very good at explaining things in a simple, clear fashion. Probably he has had a lot of opportunity. I am eternally grateful for his patience and thoroughness in answering my questions. Thank you Wik (@GAME 4 AFRICA SAFARIS ).

@rookhawk "Do I like hunting? Yep. Would I hunt these conditions? Yes. Is it sad and frustrating? Yes. Do I like talking about it, reminding me how little natural land that isn't all screwed up remains? Not at all." I get this. I feel this. My background: I live in SW Alaska, and it is unmistakably still very much natural land that's not fenced and not screwed up. I VERY much appreciate the feel of wilderness, of being someplace where getting help would be very involved. I LOVE the remoteness. I have harvested caribou and moose and bears in such places and it's very much how I prefer to hunt. However...

Hunting RSA was very much the right way to go, IMO, for my first African experience. I'd go back in a heartbeat to the same place. I hope to some day. Maybe I just got lucky, but where I chose to go, where I chose to spend my money, the areas we hunted were large enough for me to feel like the fences really weren't an issue. Having hunted animals in the wide open spaces of Alaska, the animals I hunted in Africa reacted exactly like wild animals should. I get there are differences, and for some those may be seen through stronger optics than others. But it worked for me. My cow buffalo, for example. I've been up close to brown bears many times. Her body language told me that things could have went sideways very quickly if done wrong. Did it matter that she was in an area of tens of thousands of acres with fences versus somewhere without fences? Maybe, maybe not. My instincts said no. It was a hunt, for a wild, dangerous animal. We worked to get to that point. It had a happy outcome. It warms my heart to think about it, every time I do.

Would I like to hunt wild, open-spaced Africa, and hunt in a tent where even the camping could be dangerous? Absolutely, for sure. I'd love it. But my financial situation is such that it might never happen, and I'm at peace with that. I can be happy hunting what the Eastern Cape (for example) offers. It is a sadness, as @rookhawk mentioned that such untouched areas are diminishing. I'm just glad I get so see some of them on some level while they are still here.

As many have said... figure out what works for you, and then get out and hunt.

 

[WilhelmM]

This was a very good post. As @Tom Leoni stated, the overwhelmingly negative attitude towards high fences mostly comes from a place of ignorance, albeit it is understandable. When Americans or any foreigner outside of Africa in general, hears the term 'high fence', they immediately have a vision of a 500-hectare "fortress" in a sense. This is mostly due to some of the canned hunts which used to happen here in SA, or in parts of the US.

Even when it is elaborated that most high fences do not hinder the natural behaviour of the fauna, they still have a major knee-jerk reaction because it sounds "alien" to what they're used to. I will admit that I do find low fenced and completely wild areas more attractive, but I don't dismiss the validity of high fenced areas. I can say that I've encountered old veterans from Kenya (not on AH) online who have no idea what hunting in South Africa is all about. Hell, even Namibia was labelled "not wild" by them.

Maybe it's just my point of view, but many of the veteran hunters you hear from (again not on AH) don't realize the reality of the current day. The world's ecosystems, not just Africa's, was severely damaged by: the industrial revolution, colonialism, major uprisings and conflict in said colonies, two huge global conflicts, population explosion, habitat loss, eradication of certain species by law, and of course the illegal trade of wildlife. I'm not saying they're "dumb", but they fail to realize how lucky they were to be around during that era. That and a few of them indulged in simply unsustainable practices. The ivory trade was never sustainable in the first place, not without strict regulation.

Even in some of the wildest areas in Africa, people forget that there's usually some sort of "barrier" between the wildlife and local people. Take Botswana as an example. The country has some of the vastest and pristine wildlife in the world, yet there's a veterinary fence to halt the flow of buffalo into cattle kraals. Without that veterinary fence, entire herds of buffalo would die of disease and get wiped out in retaliation by the cattle herders, which is what happened in South Africa. Of course, some of the locations the fence was placed was a detriment to migrating herds of antelope. Luckily, such as in the Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi Pan, the fence was removed and in turn, Botswana has its own 'great migration' of zebra to and from the parks.

 

[Hunt anything]

I’ve been fortunate to hunt wide open (Mozambique) low fence ( eastern cape) and high fence ( eastern cape and northwest province) as the skittishness of the game the wariest had to be the game on a 18000 hectare farm in the Northwest province, we had to work for each and every animal. This farm was high fenced and after going through the main gate we didn’t see a fence until we left 8 days later.
I would be hesitant to hunt a small fenced area like some of the whitetail operations in the states, those deer look too genetically engineered for me at least on the surface. But I’m not into designer animals anyway. Although many are gorgeous! Especially the black impala and springbok I have seen. Maybe one day my thoughts will change but as of now I’m okay with it.

 

[Hank2211]

If someone is seriously thinking of hunting in South Africa and they ask if the area is high fenced, or fenced at all, I would suggest they haven't done their homework. There are unfenced areas which can be hunted in South Africa, but they are not common and they tend to be very expensive.

The proper question is not whether an area is fenced, but how large the area is. As has been pointed out, if the area is sufficiently large, game can easily escape the hunter and can live a life virtually indistinguishable from that of a non-fenced animal. And given the nature of most animals, and the topography of much of South Africa, a property could meet these needs without being too large.

We will all have a different idea of how large is large enough, but my guess is that in most cases, we tend to overestimate what is necessary for game to live naturally and escape hunters. But there's nothing wrong with that. Hunters should know what they are hunting, and should be comfortable that the area meets their requirements. But the fact that we, as hunters, might have different ideas of acceptable sizes of fenced hunting areas is not an ethical issue (other than perhaps at the very lower limit).

The issue of reasonable property size for fair chase hunting may in fact have increased in importance beyond the logical and reasonable as a result of the marketing efforts of owners of large properties. If you have a large hunting property, it is easy to disparage smaller properties as not being large enough for animals to live naturally and to escape hunters, whether that is true or not (and I have heard that sale pith both in Africa and at SCI). In many ways, we provide "aid and comfort' to the enemy (anti-hunters) without meaning to.

As for those who would equate "high-fenced" with "canned hunting" generally, I would suggest a visit to the Bubye Valley Conservancy in southern Zimbabwe. The entire conservancy is high fenced (double fenced in fact with about a 30m zone between the fences). In total, it encompasses just under 1 million acres (about 988,000 acres I believe, if it matters), which amounts to about 1,560 square miles (bigger than some US states, I think). Canned hunting indeed.

 

[Rare Breed]

False propaganda will have you end up paying way more for the exact same thing in a different wrapper.​

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As a hunter I am sometimes shocked and surprised at how our own perceptions and views gets affected by those who oppose us, the Anti-hunting groups.

Not many years ago it was considered a honor to hunt an Elephant, if you look at these legendary hunts it was customary for a hunter to sit on top of the trophy for photos, today if you see a photo like that online they get more attacks from hunters than anti hunters because "you do not respect the animal and it is not ethical" and many more accusations.

To a large extent the same started to apply to high fenced hunting areas, I can honestly understand the resistance to small camp fencing known as “High Fenced Hunting” in the USA because of the size of the encampment, in South Africa we call it a "boma", a temporary containment facility, a place where you can stand on the one fence and see the other fence, now I would agree with anybody that shooting an animal in such an area does not even deserve debate, it is not hunting.

The problem that has developed over the years is that marketers for both the unfenced hunting areas and anti-hunting groups started using this to sell their view on hunting, now as anything that is said and used as a tool for marketing, one should consider the facts before buying the argument.

In South Africa we have properties with fences, we call it “Game Fenced Properties”, that is by no means the same thing as the punted “High Fenced hunting areas" you might have heard of.

To start off with, in the South African Nature Conservation legislation there is a permit a property owner can apply for that is called an exemption permit, this permit only gets issued if a property is larger than 400 hectare (988 Acres), the condition for the exemption permit is that the property be fenced so to keep animals inside the boundary inside and animals outside the boundary outside, thus the abundance of game fences because when an owner is granted the exemption he is exempted from hunting seasons and the game on the property is his property.

So considering the benefits to hunters/clients is that firstly, Outfitters can offer hunts out of season, secondly the animals being the property of the land owner the animals becomes part of the free market system and the ability for owners to do things like donations and offers to clients.

Now, most properties that clients hunt on are larger than 2400 acres and can go all the way up to 40 000 acres which is large properties, the animals on the properties are self reliant and breed by themselves, they are also untamed nor used to humans as there are ample place to hide and there is very little to no interaction with humans.

I have asked clients to identify a specific animal he/she sees while on a property, once he did I ask him to count the amount of times he sees that same animal for the full trip, and in very rare cases they have seen that animal 1 to 2 times in a full week, but most times they never saw it again.

Then one of the most popular marketing tactics for some of these so called free ranging properties or unfenced properties is these beautiful pictures you see for example Blesbuck, Wildebeest and other species behind these low cattle fences, and I have seen that some of these camps that are quite small on these same pictures as well.

How many times do they sell that to people as "non high fenced properties"? and yes it is not high fenced, but it does not mean the animals on these properties are uncontained animals, because the part that never gets shared is that there aren't that many animals that has the ability or the will to jump over low fences like the Kudu does. Species like wildebeest and blesbuck to name a few are contained because they do not jump fences, in the unlikely event where they actually do "jump" over a fence they damage the fence as they rather jump/dive through it and they have to be chased or spooked before they do that.

The point is that I would like to advise free thinking people not to jump on these catch phrases or jingles people warn you about like “High Fenced” and "canned" as in most cases it is just marketing jingles to promote either properties with the same practice just with lower fences or the Anti viewpoint.

So if you are a hunter, I hope you will consider the facts around this emotional subject and get the facts for yourselves, as you might be a victim of brilliant marketing by making one of the most practical management tools for game breeding and hunting, the game fence, the reason you miss great opportunities and deals based on false propaganda and you end up paying way more for the exact same thing in a different wrapper.

Here is my experienced point of view after two safari hunts. It is not about the size of the property or fencing it is about the experience of the hunt.

 

[Rare Breed]

I find it amusing that some Ranches in the states are 300 something acres with high and low fence and that is never an issue but as soon as South Africa comes into the picture no matter the size the fence is always an issue.....

Just go hunt and enjoy....

Amen!!! You are absolutely correct.

 

[Sika98k]

Just curious as to how many African animals can jump fences? Here, an elk (wapiti) can jump at LEAST an eight foot fence and a mule deer a six foot fence. I've seen a deer here jump a six foot fence just after standing next to it. What's odd is pronghorn antelope generally won't jump a three or four strand barbed wire fence and prefer to go underneath it or sometimes through the strands. I have twice seen pronghorn bucks jump a wire fence. Pronghorn are and elk historically were animals of the plains. So, elk learned to jump and pronghorn didn't? Strange.

I have not hunted South Africa but have hunted in Namibia several times, 5 or 6 . Personally I go just for the hunting experience, blue skies, warmth, beautiful animals, good food and a bit of lighthearted banter in the evenings with some friends over a bottle of Irish and a decent cigar.
I made first trip to hunt warthog ( I’ve got this thing about pigs, roll on February 2022 when we go on a driven boar hunt in Turkey .
Did I enjoy my first trip ? A big resounding Yes ! The African Safari snake had bitten me. I have hunted on cattle farms where the “fields” are 6-800 hectare in size. That’s a good mornings walk from the downwind side to the top. What are we hunting ? The surplus wild animals on the farm. They compete with the cattle for the grass and have to be kept in check. We have shot some crackers ! The farms are low fenced. I can literally step over the fences. The browsers can jump the fence whilst the grazers go under the fence. Seeing an Oryx sliding under a fence is interesting while seeing a Kudu jumping the fence is amazing, a truly graceful animal.
2019 we hunted a high fenced property. There is a rhino breeding program so they need to keep them in ! 50,000 hectares. The main house was a tiny white dot on a hillside, never got remotely near it .
Here at home in Ireland I have seen Sika deer clear a 9 foot high ditch from a standing start while I’ve seen Fallow deer running up and down a 3 foot high sheep fence in pandemonium.
Each to their own, I have more years behind me than I have in front of me and intend to enjoy them and remember “ there are no pockets in shrouds”

 

[K-man]

Some really great points of view shown so far. I think a lot of the negative view from the American mindset comes straight from the Boone and Crockett club in regards to "fair chase" which is a very straightforward definition and applies very well to North American game. It does not apply well to African game.

 

[Hunt anything]

Sika you have it right, I have a wonderful picture of a bull kudu jumping a cattle fence as a Gemsbuck slides under same fence in the background!

 

[WAB]

I have only hunted South Africa twice. Most of my African hunting has been in remote bush camps chasing buffalo. I am different than most here as I am quite happy with a Safari where I fire two shots; one on a test target and one on a hard earned buffalo in a truly wild area. I’m happy to shoot plains game but it is rarely the reason I am there. For me, the remote wilderness experience is as important as the hunting. We all have to pursue our passions, that is mine. It doesn’t make it any better or worse than others.

 

[CoElkHunter]

I have not hunted South Africa but have hunted in Namibia several times, 5 or 6 . Personally I go just for the hunting experience, blue skies, warmth, beautiful animals, good food and a bit of lighthearted banter in the evenings with some friends over a bottle of Irish and a decent cigar.
I made first trip to hunt warthog ( I’ve got this thing about pigs, roll on February 2022 when we go on a driven boar hunt in Turkey .
Did I enjoy my first trip ? A big resounding Yes ! The African Safari snake had bitten me. I have hunted on cattle farms where the “fields” are 6-800 hectare in size. That’s a good mornings walk from the downwind side to the top. What are we hunting ? The surplus wild animals on the farm. They compete with the cattle for the grass and have to be kept in check. We have shot some crackers ! The farms are low fenced. I can literally step over the fences. The browsers can jump the fence whilst the grazers go under the fence. Seeing an Oryx sliding under a fence is interesting while seeing a Kudu jumping the fence is amazing, a truly graceful animal.
2019 we hunted a high fenced property. There is a rhino breeding program so they need to keep them in ! 50,000 hectares. The main house was a tiny white dot on a hillside, never got remotely near it .
Here at home in Ireland I have seen Sika deer clear a 9 foot high ditch from a standing start while I’ve seen Fallow deer running up and down a 3 foot high sheep fence in pandemonium.
Each to their own, I have more years behind me than I have in front of me and intend to enjoy them and remember “ there are no pockets in shrouds”

+1 for the "hunting experience"! I once passed on shooting a cow calf elk at 15 yards. I should've probably taken the shot, but it was so close and was thinking at that instant what a mess my .338WM would have made at that distance. I thought I could shoot a mature cow later, but that never happened over the course of a weeks hunt. When I told this back at camp, I took a lot of "heat" and was told "first come, first served" and I should've shot it in the head, which I didn't even think about in that split second. I don't care! I enjoyed the fall hunt and that's what matters to me. When I make it to Africa, my attitude will be the same.